The Oil Drum | Can We Be Happy Using Less Energy? Uhhh.... YES!

167 comments on Can We Be Happy Using Less Energy? Uhhh.... YES!

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Don Sailorman on June 21, 2007 - 11:34am

Your distinction between wants and needs is an essential one. My paternal grandfather earned one dollar per twelve hour day digging ditches in Chicago--and he raised eleven children. They were reasonably happy on a low income. My maternal grandparents failed in rural North Dakota; they did not have enough to eat and had to put their children out as servants to others, just so the kids could eat. They were most emphatically unhappy.

We need relatively little to be happy--enough simple food, good water, warm clothing, shelter from the elements, medicines, education. The stoics claimed that happiness could only be found by reducing wants to genuine needs. Aristotle and Mortimer Adler had variations on this theme, which come down to the idea that we should want exactly what is good for us--and no more than that.

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PartyGuy on June 21, 2007 - 1:18pm

And yet, that doesn't explain why the majority of the planet wants to live the 'American Dream', or bring the AD to them in their home country. Its an interesting sociological conundrum. On the one hand, people are happy with meeting their most basic hierarchy of needs, and on the other, the pursuit of happiness seems to involve the accumulation of wealth and material possessions.

The most interesting thing to me is that, from a purely social stand point, the population as a whole, given a long enough time period, SHOULD migrate towards activities and a lifestyle that not only makes them the happiest, but requires the least amount of materials to get that point.

So the question is, whats driving the western world towards a material lifestyle? Perhaps we really are all being brainwashed in a consumer oriented fashion :P

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adamdschneider on June 21, 2007 - 2:51pm

Evolutionary fitness is a pretty tired horse beat six ways from Sunday around here (and mostly, I think, in the wrong ways), but perhaps being happy has relatively little to do with fitness compared to the accumulation of stuff?

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jokuhl on June 21, 2007 - 4:07pm

I think the 'American Dream' is a bit of a moving target.

Sometimes, I think the appeal has been that 'They love us for our Freedoms'.. or at least those that we, until recently, did what we could to exemplify.. and these are or can be pretty signifigant. A stable democracy, civil rights, free speech, religion and an open press.. a 'melting pot', creating a land of immigrants from across the globe, people valued by hard work and who would then have the chance to have a life, get ahead, maybe get rich.. etc. We all know the drill. But those things, mythic as they might be, are not really the same as the 'Three-car Garage and a 35" flatscreen in every room' American Dream that has crusted over the 'Big Cake' picture of a land of plenty. The 'Streets paved with Gold' image can have as much to do with a person's dream for a Homey, multicultural 'Shangri-La' as with the Horatio Alger fantasy.

I don't deny that the Marketing and Manipulation of the Innocent, Apple Pie America has been overwhelming, and has worked as a fine protective veneer over industrialism's far-less-than-perfect complexion.. but I would also still have to buy into the premise that our Constitution did more than a little to rebreak the table which was littered with traditional Monarchies and Feudal states that couldn't quite break the inertia to revolutionize their governments until someone started the balls (or Heads) rolling, so to speak.

That people want this current American Dream of suburban bliss and prosperity probably has as much to do with A) Television/Hollywood's successful makeover of what Suburban 'bliss' really is.. ('More Human than Human' Tyrell-Blade Runner) and B) European/Protestant culture's insistence on presenting everything as 'Fine and Nice', because we have been conditioned to 'Put on a happy face', and let that be our Reality, regardless of the facts on the ground. How could that not be addictively appealing, if it could just be sold convincingly?

Sincerity. Once you can fake that, you're golden.

Problem + Product = Happy

Obey your Thirst

Bob Fiske

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bruce from chicago on June 21, 2007 - 7:57pm

The American dream is a pyramid scheme.

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Cid Yama on June 23, 2007 - 8:44am

They pretty much finished feeding on the rest of the world. They have begun feeding on our own working class. What will happen here when they begin feeding on each other?

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mcain6925 on June 21, 2007 - 11:08pm

I think the 'American Dream' is a bit of a moving target.

No doubt, as we became richer in a material sense. Still, there are at least two aspects of "the Dream" that have been fairly constant over the last 100 years, even as the details have changed: personal transportation and greater living space. The first provides the freedom to travel where and when you want to, rather than being subject to schedules set by others, and the second is enough space so that you don't have to listen to the screaming brat in the family "next door". TTBOMK, every developing economy, as it becomes richer, immediately begins spending money on personal transportation and larger living spaces. As one example, consider China's real estate boom and staggering forecasts for automobile sales.

To the extent that they are required to give those things up, the American public as a whole will feel that their standard of living is declining. The interesting question -- at least as far as I'm concerned -- is whether all or part of the US can maintain these "critical" aspects of their standard of living in the future. I suspect that, for example, the strip along the east side of the Rockies can manage. There are plenty of local energy resources, adequate water (with a bit better planning than now done), reasonable food production capacity. I hold out much less hope for the BoWash corridor, regardless of the higher density of its metro areas. There are not sufficient local resources to support the 70M or so people living there.

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Vintermann on June 22, 2007 - 8:23am

Yet people want to live in the cities, where there is much less space.

Living rurally is cheap and easy in Norway, since it's a stated political goal to have rural settlements (in contrast to Sweden, where large rural areas are downright abandoned). When I was a student, I actually had enough money to buy an old house rather than renting an apartement. I own quite a bit of acreage, actually! If I'd went a little further out, I could have had a farm, no trouble.

In Oslo, I would have needed more than twice the amount of money to buy even the tiniest room, even if it hadn't been painted since 1940. Yet more people live there.

Space and mobility matter, but they're not the whole picture by far. I think that opportunity is what people crave most of all once their basic needs for sustenance and companionship are met. They may be happy in the Phillipines (my impression is that they are very good at the companionship bit), but they are moving out by the millions. When I've had the occasion to talk to filipinos about it, they say the same: they miss their families and communities, but they saw no future there for them, nor for their families unless they could support them from abroad. Especially those with little education are deeply pessimistic about the lives in store for them if they stay.

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sofistek on June 22, 2007 - 6:17pm

Isn't that a sad commentary on how we increasingly view life? "Opportunity", I presume, refers to the ability to earn more and consume more. On the Philippines there may be little opportunity in those terms but is that the only way we now measure happiness?

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CrystalRadio on June 21, 2007 - 10:14pm

And yet, that doesn't explain why the majority of the planet wants to live the 'American Dream

Sorry PartyGuy,but I find that a really dismal thought, as bad as living the Canadian dream whatever that is. I want to live the French Artist's dream of the turn of the 20th Century, (no Fox). Those guys rarely ate high on the Yankee style hog but there was a vitality about the arts that more than made up for it. Oops just got called to supper which I guess is everyone's dream, if not overfed already.

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luisdias on June 22, 2007 - 8:25am

And yet, that doesn't explain why the majority of the planet wants to live the 'American Dream'

reasons are simple:

1 - People outside the US really don't know much about what is the "american dream", except that they see foreign americans with lots of power and money, gadgets and "freedom", who wouldn't want that? Except that people don't really think much about what they would have to trade off to get that;

2 - People outside the US really don't care much about the "american dream". Believe me, I see more americans talking about it than anyone around me. It's called in-the-house hype. You really think you're the "thing", but outside, few really care. National media hyping the american ego for just internal satisfaction;

3 - "American Dream" jealousy was used throughout the american media to support the reasons why terrorists wanted to attack USA and americans, ignoring the fact that the most arrogantly agressive and outright illegal invading country... is the USA itself. Hatred is confused by americans as if people were jealous of their "american dream". Not true at all.

What is true is that the "american dream" is no longer a colorful tag that the world still "admires". We see America morefor what the movies tells us what it is: a brutal violent country, full of ambitious greed men in a flawed system where money not people is all that matters, with a youth childlike corrupted to drugs. Hollywood may have destroyed more the "american dream" legacy throughout the world than anyone else has had.

But americans still don't realise this. They still think they're the men!

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